Small Success Thursday: Days of Purple and White

This is the first full week of Lent, and it’s also been a week where we had real, actual snow. Until this week, we hadn’t gotten even an inch of snow, but now we’ve had more than a foot overall. My girls are past the ages where they really love to be out in the cold snow, sledding and building snowmen, and have started sounding like little old ladies about it. “I like to see the snow, and then I want it to melt.” Honest to goodness, my 13 year-old just said that to me! I guess the magical aspects of the snow are lessened by the fact that, as homeschoolers, they’re not getting the day off from school.

Don’t feel too bad for them; they went to California last March while their friends were taking standardized tests.

Since Lent began, I’ve done pretty well with my resolutions. They’re small, and I did that to help avoid failing spectacularly, and I’ve only missed a couple of times on a couple of things. The big sacrifice I decided to make was to not drink alcohol. Thanks to the influence of Sarah Vabulas, Nathan and I have really gotten into trying all kinds of craft beers, especially from the local breweries. We’ve kind of become beer snobs of sorts, always looking for a new porter to try when we go out somewhere or when we go to the wine shop. We’d also gotten into the habit of relaxing with a beer (or, for me, sometimes a glass of wine) most evenings after the kids had gone to bed.

The way I usually wind up deciding what I ought to give up is I start thinking of things a week or two away from Ash Wednesday, and when I get to something that makes me recoil in horror at the idea of giving it up, I know I’ve found the thing. Last year, it was coffee. I drank tea instead (no 40-day migrains for me), using lovely antique teacups that had been given to us for our wedding. This was charming and fun for nine days, and on the tenth day it became a real penance. So far, I’ve been doing fine, but we’re not to day ten yet. 😉

I’ve shoveled our driveway out—twice. And I didn’t feel awful while doing it — or even later! Though I haven’t been able to run much lately (things are covered in snow, and our road was icy all last week), I am still in good enough shape that shoveling didn’t hurt or make me too winded. Our driveway isn’t a tenth of a mile, but it’s still a good length.

Here’s looking back at our house from the end of the driveway.

We’ve been moving along in school, and I think we’re keeping a decent pace. My older daughter is writing her final English papers she needs to finish up last year’s work and reading the last few pages she needs for Honors World Lit, plus she’s working on classes for this year, as well. And she really understands Algebra this week! (That probably deserves its own entry in Small Success Land.) My younger daughter has kept up with all of her subjects, too. She learned how to convert Celcius to Fahrenheit, and we’re getting through the Napoleon Years in history, little by little. (Those French people are taking up a lot of time in this book so far!)

How about you? Tell me your Small Successes here in the comments, or blog about them and link up at CatholicMom.com!